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In the Vancouver-based Last First expedition, four men attempt to travel the Northwest Passage this summer in a 7.6-metre-long rowboat from Inuvik, Northwest Territories, to Pond Inlet, Nunavut. They hope to reveal the shocking effects of climate change on the Arctic.

Apeculiar rapping sound against the hull wakes me up. All four of us had been asleep, with The Arctic Joule held fast by the ground anchor in the midst of a heavy windstorm. I lie in such a way that I face out the cabin door, able to survey water conditions by just sitting up.

I bolt upright with the banging noise, but don't see a churning sea like I expect. "Holy shit," I shout. "It's ice!"

In seconds, we are all on deck facing down a 100-foot ice floe that has wedged itself up against our bow. It's being pushed hard from the storming wind and is moving directly over us. We try to release our anchor, but it's stuck as this multi-ton piece of ice, some 30 to 40 feet thick, has positioned itself above it and is making it impossible to retrieve.

We push the bow away to gain a few metres of slack to loosen the anchor, but it's no use. The ice sheet is being pressed against us and we can't move. Our anchor line becomes as tight as a steel cable, and the boat begins to moan under the strain. The nose of the bow starts to drop, being pulled down by the anchor line and the weight of the moving ice. We need to do something immediately or we're going to be swept under the ice.

WHY WE'RE HERE

The Mainstream Last First adventure began earlier this month, when Paul Gleeson, Frank Wolf, Denis Barnett and I set out on our attempt to become the first people to cross the 3,000-km Northwest Passage in a single season using human power.

We are rowing a purposebuilt, 25-foot rowboat on a journey to highlight issues of climate change and arctic sovereignty, as well as the historical significance of the route to Canada.

Our destination is Pond Inlet, Nunavut, on the east coast of Baffin Island, and we are hoping to make it there by early fall after 90 days along a route that is only recently navigable because of the Arctic's melting ice.

This latest portion has us traversing a 35-km section of open water across the bottom of Franklin Bay in the Beaufort Sea. It started off smoothly enough a couple days ago, as we worked through a band of small debris about three kilometres in width and made it to the Parry Peninsula without much effort.

A favourable current and tail wind followed us down Franklin Bay, granting us a staggering 120 km of travel in 24 hours, a distance more than double our previous longest mark.

But the warning signs soon appeared.

Nearing the coast, we notice a wall of dark cloud approaching from the northeast; there's a massive low camped over the Beaufort Sea - bad enough that we receive a cyclone warning from one authority - forecast to throw ugly weather our way.

Within an hour, the storm is upon us and the sea is wild again. The shoreline is steep and rocky and there is no place for a surf landing. This makes for a few tense minutes negotiating breaking waves and strong winds until we find shelter in a tiny gravel outcrop and some protection from the storm. We spend the rest of the evening rocked by the sea, a growl of any angry gale our only company.

By morning, the wind has died again and it's easy going for three hours until once again a menacing grey mass begins to build in the northwest.

When the wind hits, we are about half way across an exposed 15-km traverse from one headland to another. The push from the wind is so hard that we can't keep our line, and we're swept into the open waters of Sellwood Bay. We're moving in the wrong direction, so we elect to drop the sea anchor to slow the push.

A sea anchor works like an underwater parachute and, depending on its size and drag, it can stop a boat in the water or significantly slow its movement. Our sea anchor is too small for the job and allows us to be pushed at nearly one kilometre an hour toward the far shore of the bay. We retire to the cabin knowing there's nothing we can do but wait.

As we're slowly pushed to the far shore of Sellwood Bay, the depth of the water becomes shallow enough to deploy a ground anchor, allowing us to replace slow negative movement with no movement at all. A quick scan of the horizon indicates no ice, and we all lie down for some rest.

BIG CHUNK OF ICE FINDS US

The chunk of ice that now appears across our bow is completely unexpected. There had been no ice around us when we retired to the cabin an hour ago. And even if there had been, we present such a small bull's eye on such a massive target that the chance of a piece of ice actually hitting us seems very remote. Somehow this big chunk of ice has found us.

The groaning of the boat and the dipping of the bow leaves us no choice. Like having your coattails caught under a steamroller, there's only one outcome here. I pull out my serrated knife, crawl to the bow of the boat, and cut the anchor line. The rope is as tight as piano wire and explodes with the touch of the blade. We spring free.

We're a couple of kilometres from shore and the wind begins to push us in quickly. One dilemma switches to another as we sail toward a rocky beach, with no anchor to keep us off it.

As we get closer, we do everything in our power to keep away, but it is only a matter of time. With the wind unabated, we're forced to find as smooth a section of beach as possible and head in.

The moment the bow of The Arctic Joule runs up onto the gravel, we jump out and prevent the stern from swinging broadside to the waves. The water is waist-deep and icy cold, and we take turns standing in it to keep our bucking bronco from breaking free and breaching.

Just when all seems hopeless, another ice floe appears a few hundred metres offshore, heading in our direction. This one is smaller than the behemoth we tangled with earlier, but still carries enough girth to be imposing. It will be on top of us soon.

We make a sharp effort, push off from shore, and head into the protection of the incoming ice. It becomes grounded on the seabed as we had hoped, and we take the opportunity to use it as a moorage. Clambering atop the slab, we place two ice screws and are able to rig a satisfactory anchor - in reality an ice-climbing anchor - to which we hold fast. We're protected by the ice a short distance from shore and safely out of the wind.

Denis Barnett is a secret fan of the '80s pop rocker Chris de Burgh, and on a number of occasions after particularly challenging days on this trip has threatened us with a serenade of a de Burgh classic. He's so happy with our mobile ice moorage that he names it Chris - Chris de Berg, the iceberg.

Moored to Chris, out of the storm, we take a deep breath after our ordeal, but no sooner are we out of our drysuits than we hear a thundering crash outside and a thump against the boat. Chris is disintegrating, being pounded by the waves. As it breaks up it may twist, tumble and somersault - and we're attached to it. It's another mad frenzy of donning drysuits, leaping onto a fracturing iceberg to free ourselves, only to be cast again into a breaking surf and winds.

We're at wit's end, and start rowing intensely a mere metres from shore. We put ourselves on 20-minute shifts, the effort required being so high, just to keep going. Over the course of several hours, we creep along the edge of shore and discover a tiny bay partly choked in ice that will provide us protection.

We slip in to our safe harbour, finally out of the wind and out of the storm.

Kevin Vallely and his Mainstream Last First crew all call Vancouver home. You can follow their adventure online at vancouversun.com/lastfirst

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